Saturday, March 30, 2013

Dylan just showed me how to
do an interactive version of the maps that I do most everyday to map the day's
route, so we'll give this a try. Right off the bat, I'm not sure how much I like
it. If you think the old way was better, let me know and I'll put those back
in.

View Larger
MapI
awoke to the sounds of fishing and emerged from my tent to find that one of the
overlanders had caught another trout. This one measured about 17 inches and was
caught with some crappy second hand lures on a normal fishing rod. Jeff, if you
are reading this, here's your
fish:We said our goodbyes and hit the road. The peak Cerro Castillo and some
other smaller spires soon came into
view:Just past the puebla of Cerro Castillo the road went back to pavement.
The road was incredible and the views were
fantastic.So far I think that the Carretera Austral is one of the best roads that
I've been on during this trip. The combination of ripio, pavement, and
incredible scenery have combined to make this an incredible
ride.We took a short
day and stopped in the town of Coyhaique, population 50,000. This is the largest
town we are going to hit for a while so we decided that it would be a good idea
to get some supplies and some American dollars before crossing back into
Argentina.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Leaving
our awesome campground at Chile Chico was a little hard; however, we were
excited to start the Carretera Austral. From Chile Chico to the actual
Carreterra Austral there is a 70 mile long ripio approach that skirts the
southern edge of Lake General Carrera. The views were incredible and the road
quality actually fairly decent.

You
can see the road running up the left side of the hill in the picture
below:

After
about 70 miles of riding, we finally linked up with the actual Carretera
Austral. We stopped at the intersection for a quick lunch break. Lunch consisted
of two cans of tuna mixed in with a block of cream cheese, chopped onions, sun
dried tomatoes, a little olive oil, all smeared on hot dog buns.

As
we were passing through the puebla of Rio Tranquilo (home of the Marble Chaple
that yuri told me about but that I forgot) I noticed some bikers. We stopped to
chat for a minute. One of the riders who was on one of those crazy DR800's had
been hit by a car the day before. The people drive like crazy on these ripio
roads and he had taken a head on collision with a car and miraculously survived
unscathed. His bike on the other hand was a little beat up. There was also a
pretty cool little XR400 in their group:

The
road soon denigrated into some real rough wash board with the large suicide
gravel. The views continued to be spectacular.

We
passed by tons of lakes and rivers that were fed from glacial runoff. The
glacial sediments suspended in the water reflect a certain wavelength of light
and give the water an incredible aquamarine color that's difficult to capture on
camera.

As
we were nearing our stopping point at the end of the day, we came across a
convoy of overland vehicles. Dylan recognized one of the trucks and realized
that they were some of the overlanders that we had met in Lima a couple of
months ago! We all pulled over and got out to say hi. There were four vehicles
and four couples; Jed and Megan, (the American couple that had been attacked by
the village in Peru), James and Lauren, and then two other couples whose names
that I don't remember. We talked for a little bit and then they invited us to
camp out with them next to a river that we had passed a few miles ago. We made a
quick run into the nearby village to buy food then returned back to the campsite
to hang out.

We
ended up building a bonfire, drinking a bunch of wine, and eating trout ceviche
from a fish that one of the overlanders had just caught out of the river. It was
awesome!

Spent the day chilling in Chile Chico. The climate here is
amazing; this is the first day that I've spent in shorts and a t-shirt in a
while and it was a welcome change. I've heard that the Carreterra Austral can be
a little wet, so it was nice to soak up the sun while I could.

I took the
opportunity today to check my valves, clean my air filter, and give the bike a
thorough once over to make sure nothing was breaking. My improvised chain slider
seems to be holding up okay. The chain has worn through about 1/3 of the
thickness of the nylon, but it seems to be holding steady there.

The
valve check was going pretty well at first; everything seemed a bit loose, so I
started tightening everything up. I finished, then went back to double check all
of the adjustments and found that I couldn't get the feeler gage in the right
exhaust valve any longer. I loosened it up almost to the limit and still could
barely fit the correct gage in! I had a minor heart attack, then realized that I
had been wiggling the crankshaft a little after I had finished the initial
adjustments. I went back, rotated the crank shaft a few times, put it back at
TDC, and was able to adjust the valve properly again. Phew!

I
do have one question though for all of the XRL riders though: the manual says to
tighten the valve until there is "slight drag" on the feeler gage. I've been
tightening the valve down all the way until the feeler gage is stuck, then
gradually back off until it slides back and forth with a little bit of catch to
it. Is that what I should be looking for or do I have it too tight? It seems
like it's a hard thing to measure as there is always a "slight drag" on the
feeler gage when you insert it unless the valve is extremely loose.

Spent
the rest of the day sending emails, trying to coordinate shipping for my bike,
and walking around Chile Chico. Dylan tells me that we are right next to the
second largest lake in South America, right behind Lago Titicaca.

This
evening a stray dog ripped a hole in Dylan's tent and ate some of his food. A
few minutes later a few cats jumped up on the picnic table where we've been
cooking and knocked over some of our pots and stole some hotdogs. Dylan got
pissed and started chasing the cats around trying to stomp them into the ground.
I just watched and laughed and wondered why girls always get angry at me for
being mean to animals. They should really be angry with Dylan. Tomorrow we begin the
Carretera Austral. Things are starting to draw to a close for me. I figure I
still have a few weeks left but all of this talk about shipping has me feeling
like I'm getting ready to head back tomorrow!

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Leaving
"GG" (aka Gobenador Gregores) at around noon, Dylan and I sped north, hoping to
make it to Chile Chico that evening and be poised to begin the Careterra Austral
in the following days.

From what Dylan and others had told me, the
remaining majority of Ruta 40 was paved. There were only a few short sections
left that were still blessed with loose covering of ripio.

In
reality, it wasn't long before we found them.

Just
to give you an idea of what ripio roads can be like, take a look at the size of
these rocks:

If
you can't tell from the picture, a lot of these things are about the size of a
baseball. It's really fun to hit a patch of this stuff at 60 MPH and have your
front end bouncing around like a pogo stick while you clutch desperately to the
handlebars and hope that you don't take a digger. Combine that with some really
bad wasboards and gale force cross winds and you have for a really interesting
ride. Hearing stories about what it was like a few years ago before they started
paving it all makes me wonder just how many times my luggage rack would have
broken while trying to ride this road. I'm actually surprised that it hasn't
broken again already.

The road alternated between long stretches of
pavement and short stretches of ripio all day.

We
passed multiple road crews operating graders and tractors and paving equipment.
It's kind of sad really. Ruta 40 seems like it has been this iconic right of
passage for Trans America trips. With all of it getting paved, where are we
going to get stories of people being blown into patches of ripio by the winds
and being ripped off their bikes? On second thought, maybe it is a good thing
that it's being paved.

While stopping for lunch we met some Argentinians
on Honda 250's that were doing the entire stretch of Ruta 40 from South to
North. They called their bikes "pizza bikes" as they were the same model that
pizza shops in big cities use to deliver pizza on. They had a good 20 minute
lead on us when we left, but we caught them up in no time. I got way out in
front of them and pulled over to take a picture; Dylan decided that this would
be a good time to thread the needle at 60 MPH and nearly clipped my
elbow.

Eventually
we reached the end of the ripio and cruised into the town of Perrito Moreno.
After a brief stop to fill up on cheap Argentinian gas, we crossed the border
into Chile Chico and found an awesome campground with wifi for 3,000 Pesos
($6).

I
love Chile. Everything just seems so much easier here. We made a quick dash up
to the nearest mercado and I bought a ton of food and cooked up a big pot of
Carbonara. This trip is turning me into a total foodie. I look forward to dinner
every day with an undisguised relish. I think Dylan is getting tired of hearing
me talk about food.

After
another frosty night in El Chalten, we packed up our gear, said our goodbyes to
our hiking friends, and set off for Gobenador Gregores, a small town in the
middle of nowhere off of Ruta 40 where Dylan had been stranded for three days
due to a gas shortage during his ride south. We crossed our fingers hoping that
they would have gas this time as the next fuel stop was beyond our maximum
range.

Leaving El Chalten, Fitz Roy loomed majestically in the background
as a strong tailwind propelled us to the east and the turn off for Ruta
40.

After
reaching Ruta 40 and the small pueblo of Tres Lagos, we stopped at the last
gasolinera to top off our tanks. Immediately outside of the service station, the
road devolved back into it's natural primal state: ripio!

This
section between Tres Lagos and Gobendador Gregores had been rumored to be one of
the worst stretches. However, it appeared that a grader had been along recently
and we were able to fly! There were also several long stretches that had just
been paved or were about to be paved. Dylan commented that the road had improved
markedly since he had been here a few weeks ago.

Below you can see one of
the freshly paved sections running parallel to the old road on the
right:

The
XR650L felt like it was back at home in the gravel and the dirt and I found
myself flying along faster than I normally would ride on the pavement with
Metallica cranked in my headphones. Dylan tooled along at a slightly more sedate
pace for the most part; however, on the final stretch into town, he cranked it
up and rode alongside of me.

Just
outside of town, Dylan stopped and emptied his reserve into his tank in the hope
that there would be fuel.

And
then we hauled ass down the remaining stretch of ripio. It was actually pretty
nice and Dylan made a little movie with his GoPro:

We arrived in town and found a fairly long line
for gas at the service station. We pulled in behind another motociclista riding
a Harley with Italian plates.

I
was extremely impressed! When I had first decided on doing this trip, I had
thought about doing it on my Harley but had been talked out of it by several
people. In retrospect, I'm kind of sad that I didn't. Seeing someone like this
guy who has literally ridden his Harley around the world is very inspiring! I
didn't catch his name and I'm sorry I didn't. He was on an older Fat Boy with
the 80 CI EVO motor. So cool!

He's
actually put so many miles on this bike that the odometer has rolled
over!

So
impressive! He said he gets a little cold while riding down here and that the
ripio is a real bear, but other than that, he was having a good
time.

Since it was my birthday, I convinced Dylan that we should spring
for a hotel. After stashing our gear, I headed to a Parrilla and treated myself
to some Asado. This was overseas birthday number two for me; last year's was in
the Sandbox formerly know as Afghanistan. Argentina is a much better place to
spend your birthday.

I
woke up on the morning of the 12th shivering uncontrollably. The lack of cloud
cover had caused the temperature to plummet and the vapor from my breath had
frozen to the underside of my tent fly in a fragile lattice of ice. I was
seriously regretting bringing my worst and oldest sleeping bag; after warming up
a bit and eating breakfast, I hunted down some cardboard to insulate my tent
hobo style against the upcoming night.

Once again, Dylan and I joined our
new found gang of North American friends and hit the trail. Today's hike would
take us up to the base of Fitz Roy. The trail head was a short walk outside of
El Chalten and began with a brisk climb.

The
weather turned out to be crystal clear and after an hour of hiking, we reached a
lake with a great view of the approaching peaks.

The
trail continued on and the views of Fitz Roy and it's surrounding spires became
progressively more stunning.

The
hike was fairly mild for the most part and was made even easier by the fact that
we were only carrying day packs. It was nice to have a group of Americans and
Canadians to talk to as we hiked.

Just
before the last portion of the hike, we came to a small shelter and found this
bird just hanging out a few feet away from the trail:

Apparently
so many people have fed this thing that it just stakes out next to the trail
every day and waits for scraps. I threw a rock next to it to see if it would
scare off, but it just took a couple of hops and then tried to see if the rock
was food.

The last portion of the hike was a steep scree covered trail
that left me breathless. Fortunately, the view at the top was worth
it.

The
views from Lago de Los Tres were totally breathtaking, despite the hoards of
people that were at the mirador with us. We were even treated to a few small
avalanches from the hanging glaciers above the southernmost lake.

After
spending an hour or so eating lunch and taking pictures, we headed back down to
El Chalten and cooked up some dinner. I ended up staying up till midnight and
drinking a few beers to celebrate my birthday. At 29, I'm starting to feel old,
almost like I should go and do something with my life!